Monday, May 14, 2007

There's a major problem with Atlas Quest. Most of the time you guys don't notice it, but whenever I'm out of Internet access for any length of time, a serious problem could occur and I won't be around to handle it. That's a problem. I am the sole webmaster on Atlas Quest.

There are a couple of admins who can edit inappropriate messages or investigate "personality clashes." I sometimes use them to bounce ideas off of as well. =)

But Atlas Quest needs another webmaster. Not someone to develop the website--I'm more than happy to do that myself--or even maintain the day-to-day aspects of the site. But rather, I need someone with a technical background who can repair the database if it becomes corrupted while I'm off backpacking deep in the forests without an Internet connection. Someone who can hop into action when the server locks up and needs to be reboot.

So I'm looking for an honest-to-goodness webmaster who I can depend on to handle the emergencies of the website when I'm not available to do so. Preferably a couple of them.

That's basically the main task. There's a message board for webmasters to chat here, but it's a lonely board since I'm the sole person who can read it. I use it to jot notes to myself at times, but it's not a very interesting board. Might be fun to have another webmaster or two to chat with about the technical details of the site.

The type of skills a person would need include:

* Database experience (MySQL preferred)

* Good understanding of object-oriented designs

* PHP experience preferred (though not required--you can learn as you go, and I don't expect you'd be handling that part of the website much)

* Apache experience preferred (again, not required, but someone who knows a lot more about it than I do would be greatly appreciated!)

* Experience wading around the Unix-flavored operating systems (again, you can learn as you go, but someone with a lot more knowledge than me would be greatly appreciated!)

* Someone who uses Atlas Quest, is familiar with how the site works, it's capabilities, and the other members who use it.

* Someone who'd be willing to help as a webmaster for a long, long time. =) I really don't want to have to retrain someone every couple of months!

* Someone who'd enjoy the job "for the glory." I can barely cover my own expenses much less start paying someone else to help. =) Perhaps free premium membership and my eternal thanks as a perk, but that's about it.

Ideally, it should be a pretty easy job with absolutely nothing to do most of the time. If someone is really interested in helping to develop a feature or improvement and taking a more active roll in the job, I'm sure we can work something out. It's certainly not a requirement, though, since I still intend to do all development myself.

Think you're qualified? Want to become one of the most powerful people on Atlas Quest? Top of the food chain that makes even the admins quake in the their boots? ;o) Send me an AQ mail and let me know. Be sure to include what sort of technical skills you have or may be short of. And it is okay to be short of some needed technical skills as long as you're willing to learn. When I started Atlas Quest, I wouldn't have even qualified for most of the skills I mentioned!

2 comments:

Mr. Bear-Cat is a professional web-designer by trade, with heaps o' experience in MySQL, Linux/Unix, PHP, Apache, AJAX, etc. Always looking for 'fun' things to do with computers, and helping out with the AQ site would definitely qualify! Let's talk further... teambearcat@gmail.com